In the News

Recessions are always racist. This one could be catastrophic.

“The last foreclosure crisis was a slow-moving train; the impact in terms of people was over the course of several years,” said Jesse Van Tol, chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a research and advocacy coalition of 600 community organizations. “Whereas the current moment, it’s all happening pretty quickly, 25 million, 30 million unemployed in a manner of a few weeks.”

Some of Lamb’s notable work includes a former partnership with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which was a $30 billion community commitment that focused on access to capital for small businesses, first-time homeownership, and educational opportunities for underserved communities and people of color.

More than half of Latino families live one crisis away from financial disaster and wouldn’t be able to cover basic expenses for three months in the event of an economic burden, according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a nonprofit targeting discrimination in lending, housing and business practices.

“We expect the additional PPP funding will run out of money just as quickly as the first round — if not sooner — and it’s only going to reach very small and minority-owned businesses if the Small Business Administration makes that a priority,” Jesse Van Tol, CEO of National Community Reinvestment Coalition said in a statement.

“Congress should have gone further and required that, but it didn’t. If the SBA doesn’t explicitly prioritize micro-businesses and minority-owned businesses, it’s likely that bigger companies will once again dominate the program while the smallest businesses are once again left out.”

There is no doubt that the rule changes proposed by the government would diminish the effectiveness of a law that was desperately needed when it was enacted and which remains essential to ensure banks meet the credit needs of all communities where they take deposits, not just the wealthy ones.

“I’ve seen no indication so far that they’ve thought about their role in owning those securities as anything other than monetary policy, but it’s my belief that they have the power to do that kind of thing,” Van Tol says.

According to Jesse Van Tol, the CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a blanket national halt to evictions and foreclosures would help policymakers get ahead of any uptick in delinquencies and defaults, preventing the government form “reacting to it and playing catch-up,” he told American Banker.

“This grave pandemic demands a comprehensive and all-encompassing response. The health and wellbeing of our fellow citizens and residents are at stake,” the NCRC wrote. “The undersigned organizations must immediately drop all policy-related matters and help their clients and communities with basic survival.”

“This is going to make it harder for community groups to engage in the process,” said Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. “These are substantial changes that are being presented as a technical update, with almost none of those changes being advertised. So yeah — it’s sort of a stealth maneuver.”

According to Jesse Van Tol, the CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a blanket national halt to evictions and foreclosures would help policymakers get ahead of any uptick in delinquencies and defaults, preventing the government form “reacting to it and playing catch-up,” he told American Banker.

Groups including the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which promotes fairness in lending and housing, were scheduled to meet with representatives from the country’s largest mortgage lenders on Thursday, according to the coalition’s chief executive officer, Jesse Van Tol.

According to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), the 25 largest banks alone generate about $35.6 billion per year in community development loans, equity investments, and grants.

“If you raise the exemption threshold, you end up in a situation where the vast majority of FDIC banks are exempt from the new system, which begs the question — why sign on to the proposal at all if you’re preserving the way CRA is now for most banks?” said Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

This time, rather than mortgage delinquencies growing over time, it could spike suddenly as people suddenly find themselves without a job, said Jesse Van Tol, chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.